Thursday, February 27, 2014

"That’s one of the main points that Brookings Institution scholars P.W. Singer and Allan Friedman make in their new bookCybersecurity and Cyberwar

Wonky-sounding though it may be, the book is a brisk and fun read—and terrifying.

“China is at the center of the largest theft in all of human history that is playing out right now,” Singer tells War is Boring, “with the intellectual property targets being vacuumed ranging from jet fighter designs to soft drink company negotiating strategies to academic papers.”

“Is it war in the traditional sense of politically motivated mass violence?” Singer asks rhetorically. “No. But it is something that matters hugely in economic and national security, especially when you think about all that investment, all those potential edges in the boardroom and maybe even future battlefields just lost.”

Two articles from very different sources, with different political perspectives, which nevertheless agree on the importance and value of accelerating the development of self-driving cars.

"The more than 1.3 million people killed and 50 million injured in traffic accidents world-wide each year can be expected to double in the next two decades as the number of vehicles doubles.

The introduction of self-driving cars would reduce the number of traffic accidents and fatalities immediately, not just when everyone has one, because they are programmed to avoid accidents with human drivers who may be drunk, sleepy, angry, inattentive, unskilled or texting, which collectively cause more than 95% of accidents world-wide. A Nhtsa study released last year using data culled from black boxes in random car crashes revealed that only 1% of drivers fully applied the brakes and one-third didn't brake at all. Robo-car will brake fully, every time."

Unfortunately, "...the best we can get out of Washington is an announcement this month by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx that the DOT intends to "begin working" on a regulatory proposal to someday require vehicle-to-vehicle communications for crash avoidance. Worse, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Nhtsa), the DOT's regulatory agency, is putting the brakes on the driverless revolution. In 2012, Kevin Vincent, the agency's chief counsel, went so far as to call it "a scary concept" for the public."

"If and when that day (of self-driving cars) arrives, many existing transportation inefficiencies will have been addressed without any government action at all.

To be fair, the government is taking steps to make your next drive better. Federal officials recently endorsed connected vehicle technology that should improve highway safety (though the system won't operate at peak efficiency until state and local leaders also invest in intelligent infrastructure). And it's certainly not to say the private sector always gets transportation right. Private road investments, for instance, can go terribly awry.

Winston and Mannering urge the government not to interfere with driverless technology — except, perhaps, to resolve some critical social questions about liability. But it won't be enough for public officials to sit idly by. The emergence of a driverless fleet will only draw more attention to the poor condition of America's roads and its broken transportation funding system. Try as they might, that's one problem public officials can't avoid for too much longer."

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Here is a very interesting article which clarifies newly uncovered facets of FDR's thinking which may underlie his actions towards Japanese-Americans and Jews. What follows are excerpts from the article, with a link at the end.

"By Order of the President, a critically acclaimed 2001 book by Greg Robinson, an American historian at the University of Quebec, revealed a number of incendiary articles about Asians that Franklin Roosevelt wrote in the 1920s. In those articles, the future president asserted that “the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results.” FDR argued that because “Japanese immigrants are not capable of assimilation into the American population,” they could not be trusted and their right to purchase land should be restricted...."

"Roosevelt’s views about the Japanese dovetail with his privately expressed opinions about Jews. In my (the article's author Rafael Medoff) own recent research in the diaries and correspondence of Roosevelt Cabinet members and others close to FDR, I have found a number of troubling remarks by the president in this vein. For example, he complained about Jews “overcrowding” certain professions in Germany, North Africa, and even in Oregon. He was one of the initiators of a quota on the admission of Jews to Harvard. He boasted to one friend—a U.S. senator—that “we have no Jewish blood in our veins.” He claimed antisemitism in Poland was a reaction to Jews dominating the local economy. And he embraced an adviser’s proposal to “spread the Jews thin” around the world, in order to prevent them from dominating their host countries.

FDR’s writings and statements indicate that he regarded both Jews and Asians as having innate biological characteristics that made it difficult, or even impossible, for them to become fully loyal Americans. Certain individual, assimilated Jews could be useful to him as political allies or advisers, but having a substantial number of Jews, especially the less assimilated kind, was—in his mind—inviting trouble.

FDR’s private views help explain an otherwise inexplicable aspect of his response to the Holocaust–his administration’s policy of suppressing refugee immigration far below the legal limits. The quota of immigrants from Germany (about 26,000 annually) was filled in only one year out of Roosevelt’s 12 in the White House. In most of those years, it was less than 25 percent filled. If public or congressional opposition prevented liberalizing the entire immigration quota system, why not at least permit the existing quotas to be quietly filled? The answer is that Franklin Roosevelt’s vision of America did not make room for substantial numbers of Asian or Jewish immigrants."

If you are interested in this, see the full article and further citations here:

Here is an interesting article that offers hope for those with dyslexia.

"New research suggests that video games may be potential tools for improving concentration and reading in people with dyslexia, offering even more solid scientific footing for the growing number of researchers who believe that the medium has a clear place in 2010s therapy."

Having lived in Mendocino county and often visited Humboldt county, I found the following story of special interest. It confirmed some of my experiences at that time, 1990 - 1997, and reports from friends in the area since then.

"The huge volumes of water used to grow marijuana, as well as the noxious fertilizers and pesticides gushing into streams, are pushing local watersheds to their breaking point.

+

“Marijuana cultivation has the potential to completely dewater and dry up streams in the areas where [cannabis farmers are] growing pretty extensively,” Scott Bauer, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), tells Quartz...."

"The paradoxical status of marijuana in the US—it is legal to grow and sell in some states, but remains illegal under federal law—makes it hard to regulate. In theory, Californian state or local regulators should be able to set environmental standards for cannabis cultivation, the way they might with grapes or timber. But the federal government won’t let them. As a result, growers enjoy unregulated use of water, and the resulting easy profits have helped attract operations that are increasingly industrial in scale—and run by growers who are unrepentant about sucking the Emerald Triangle dry."

Thursday, February 13, 2014

When I was a child I was fascinated by raisins and the raisin wine which my grandfather made.

We had a great-uncle who would annually deliver four or eight gallons of his home-made wine - he made it in his basement with grape-presses, barrels and more. He had begun making wine during prohibition and continued for the rest of his life, blessing the family with his wine deliveries regularly. It was a heavy, dark red wine - and to a child his wine was pretty strong.

My grandfather's raisin wine, on the other, was mild and sweet, just what I liked. And it was simple, and I suppose cheap, which was important since we were quite poor. He would soak the raisins in the wine for a period of time, days or weeks, am not sure how long. I recall him draining and straining the soaking raisins, squeezing out the cloth full of raisins as if it was a giant grape from which he wanted the last drops. And what was left of the raisins then went into porridge, baking and other food.

Recently, scientists have been exploring bacterium spores which can dry up like raisins and then rehydrate, over and over many times, and in the process generate energy with high efficiency.

More significantly, this process can occur with just moist air passing over the bacterium spores, even the moist air of our breathing. And some researchers are working with mutant bacterium which have twice the energy potential; there is even the possibility of genetic engineering to increase the energy output. Is this a possible source for renewable energy and electricity on a large scale from changes in humidity?

See:

http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n2/full/nnano.2013.290.html

Does our breathing, the contraction and expansion of body-mind in many forms, the drying up and rehydrating of our lungs and body, generate energy? Of course it does.

If so, do we live this energetic life of seemingly expanding-contracting, arising-passing, or hinder this life we are? From a different perspective, how can we make good use of this, facilitate it and allow it to support and nurture life?

Monday, February 10, 2014

There has been a lot of snow this winter - and therefore I offer this Shoveling Zazen Dharma talk audio:

and the following poem by Billy Collins. Enjoy.Shoveling Snow With Buddha

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

Friday, February 7, 2014

During the day or night,
notice when you "are" upset, angry, hurt, frustrated, sad, happy, thrilled,
excited (or any number of similar words
that you use to describe and evaluate conditions/circumstances, to describe what is "your" state now).

Notice what you “say” to
your self or others about the way this moment is. Notice what you “say” is happening “in”/”with”
a situation- whether this is involving your self and/or someone else.

These “comments” can
also be related to social or environmental circumstances, group activities, technological
or mechanical circumstances, the condition of “your” body, mind, emotions,
feelings, or that of others etc.

Examples can include how
your computer or car is working, the weather, body aches, things you or others
said or did, thought or believed, about person xx, group z, event y, etc.

Having thought, said,
commented as you noted above, what did you actually do or not do (physical or
verbal behavior etc)?

Please keep running
notes on these during the next weeks as your life permits.

In doing the above
exercise of writing, discovering whatever you do and reflecting on this, what additional/alternative
skillful and appropriate responses come to mind about each specific situation,(
in addition to what you actually did or did not do)?

"Spending some time in completedarkness has now been tied to permanent improvements in hearing, confirming the long-held belief that the loss of one sense sharpens another.

Dr. Hey-Kyoung Lee, associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and one of the lead authors of the new study, said in press releasethat the findings also illuminate a potential therapy method for the hard of hearing. "In my opinion, the coolest aspect of our work is that the loss of one sense — vision — can augment the processing of the remaining sense, in this case, hearing, by altering the brain circuit, which is not easily done in adults," she said. "By temporarily preventing vision, we may be able to engage the adult brain to now change the circuit to better process sound, which can be helpful for recovering sound perception in patients with cochlear implants for example.”

The findings, which are published in the journal Neuron, show that adult mice who spend one week in complete darkness display a significant increase in their ability to respond to sounds. Compared to a control group that spent the same period in a naturally lit environment, these mice developed more complex nerve circuitry in the primary auditory cortex, the brain area that processes sounds. "There is some level of interconnectedness of the senses in the brain that we are revealing here," Patrick Kanold, the paper's second lead author, explained.

Lee, Kanold, and colleagues theorize that the observed rewiring of mice’s brains arises from a temporary increase in the brain’s “malleability.” This state, they say, is akin to a “critical period” that occurs in our early youth, when our brains continuously adapts to the surrounding soundscape. As a result, entirely new nerve connections are formed."

Though these scientific findings have only been with mice, there seems to be potential consequences for humans. Until the findings are verified with further research, what might we make of the results, do with them?

In zazen, sitting, we are not in the dark, our eyes are not closed. Nevertheless, if you sit zazen, if you sit for extended periods, for sesshin of days or even longer training periods, what do you notice about your senses both during those times and afterwards?

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Knowing my interest in unintended consequences, the article below was sent to me. It concerns the unintended consequences of actions taken around the potential dangers of nuclear power. I can not verify the accuracy of the data and sources cited in the article.

Some questions raised by the article are: is it possible to recognize and take seriously the results of climate change, the consequences of human actions and the need to make changes, while also acknowledging the benefits of and demands for power, electricity and other forms of technological innovation?

Though renewable energy sources are desirable, at this time they do not seem to be a feasible means to fulfill a major portion of our needs (for various economic and technological reasons); they certainly can not meet the increasing demands of the future. Is a gradual movement towards "less coal" and lower emissions acceptable using non-renewables while at the same time gradually increasing the use of renewables?

Below is an excerpt regarding unintended consequences:

"Even though Germany has spent more than $100 billion subsidizing renewables since 2000, the country's coal use is rising, as are its carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the BP Statistical Review. And Germany's coal use may continue to grow as the country turns away from nuclear power. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Germany shut down eight of its nuclear reactors, and it plans to retire the rest by 2022. According to an October report from energy publisher Platts, some 7,300 megawatts of new coal plants will be brought online by next year.

It's not just Germany. Global coal consumption jumped by about 55% over the past decade as demand for electricity has soared. That consumption is boosting global carbon-dioxide emissions, which have increased by 32% over that period, according to the BP Statistical Review. Relatively small reductions in carbon emissions in Europe or the U.S. won't make a significant difference amid such rapid growth. Since 2005, China alone has increased its carbon-dioxide emissions by about 3.6 billion tons, or about four times the amount Germany emitted in 2012.

The reality is simple: The U.S. is the world leader in carbon policy. It has cut carbon-dioxide emissions more effectively than the EU while generating an economic boom from the shale revolution. In October 2013, Purdue University energy economist Wallace Tyner estimated that between 2008 and 2035 the shale revolution will add an average of $473 billion a year to the U.S. economy—or about 3% of current GDP. Using more natural gas in the U.S. sets an example for the rest of the world for economic growth, energy production and carbon dioxide."

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Bodhisattva grave precepts "Not Putting Down Others and Elevating Yourself" and "Not Speaking of the Faults of Others" are valuable guidelines for our habitual speech, beliefs and actions which can cause much harm and suffering. Exploring and clarifying our life with these precepts are wonderful life supports.

Taking these precepts into a broader political and social context is not always easy; here is an insightful comment about why it seems so tempting to indulge in these habits:

"Any ideology or movement, right or left, that is organized negatively—against rather than for—enjoys an inherent advantage in politics, mobilizing unappeasable energies that never have to default on their announced goal of cleansing the body politic of its alleged poisons.

In this respect, one might think of anti-Semitism as the purest and most murderous example of an enduring political archetype: the negative campaign."

This comment is by Ruth Wisse from Harvard University in a larger article about political speech which makes points that you may or may not agree with; nevertheless the comment itself is worth beginner's mind reflection. The article is at: